I have at times compared Europe with Tarzan. It has relatively advanced morphology but its speech is still a little scanty. What does this quotation tell us about the role of citizenship in state-building. Discuss with reference to citizenship practise

George MacDonald

I have at times compared Europe with Tarzan. It has relatively advanced morphology but its speech is still a little scanty.” What does this quotation tell us about the role of citizenship in state-building. Discuss with reference to citizenship practise and the European Union.

Etienne Davignon in 1972 said ‘I have at times compared the European Union with Tarzan. It has relatively advanced morphology but its speech is still a little scanty’ this quotation implies that while the European Union (EU) has a relatively advance institutional structure it fails to have a common set of ideals which it shares with its citizens and portrays internationally. The European Union institutions has evolved substantially since the 1951 when the treaty of Paris to establish the European Coal and Steal Community (1) to the modern day with the EU now consisting of five institutions. The European parliament and the Council of the European Union, who share legislative power across the majority of policy areas (2), the European Commission that is responsible for the introduction of policies proposals and checking the execution of policies (3), Court of justice who ‘oversee the implementation of European law’ (3), and the Court of Auditors who check the financing of Union activities. Several political bodies including; The European Economic and Social committee, the Committee of the Regions, the European Central Bank, The European Ombudsman, and the European Investment Bank, support theses institutions further. Over the years these EU institutions have increased the involvement it has within its member states, originally dealing with coal and steel markets, to creating a common European market, to the democratic political system that is in place today (4). The upshot of this is the EU now plays a fundamental role in the political, civil and social elements of EU citizens without being a state.

Thus the EU defies some traditional theorists who believed a political system could not exist without a state. The EU is able to shun this theory due to membership being voluntary and that member states are still left to administer certain state powers eg coercion, thus remaining nation states albeit with some sovereignty conceded, consequently the EU functions as a political system without the need for stateness. However because the EU has elements of sovereign power and can therefore influence policies throughout the Union it demonstrates certain characteristics of a state, in which case it there must be some element of citizenship because a state cannot exist without citizenship. The traditional definition of what citizenship is, is along the lines of; ‘Citizenship is a relationship between the individual and the state in which the two are bound together by reciprocal rights and duties’ (5) therefore because that the EU is not a full state, EU citizenship could differ from this kind of definition.

The first major indication of the nature of EU citizenship can be seen in the legalisation of EU citizenship in the EC treaty, Article 17;

“Citizenship of the Union is hereby established. Every person holding the nationality of a Member State shall be a citizen of the Union. Citizenship of the Union shall complement and not replace national citizenship.”

[italics sentence added by Amsterdam Treaty, 1996]

The legal ratification of citizenship is extremely important as it lays out a primary definition of who is ‘in’ and who is ‘out’ as citizens, this is important ...

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The first major indication of the nature of EU citizenship can be seen in the legalisation of EU citizenship in the EC treaty, Article 17;

[italics sentence added by Amsterdam Treaty, 1996]

The legal ratification of citizenship is extremely important as it lays out a primary definition of who is ‘in’ and who is ‘out’ as citizens, this is important in analysing the nature of citizenship as it lays out clear boundaries about who is entitled to participate in establishing and shaping of citizens rights and who is involved in citizenship practise.

Citizenship practise is two fold, firstly constitutive (6),

the relationship between the individual and the polity. As the EU has developed it has affected citizens rights more and more because after each major summit, Paris (1974), Fontainebleau (1984), Maastricht (1991) and Amsterdam (1997) the EU institutions have gained more power over policy and law making. Reaching the point today where EU legislation and its legal framework (the Court of Justice having supremacy over national law) are having an effect over everyday policy making in its member states in addition to at a European level. Consequently the institutions of the EU have become extremely important as these are what connects the individual citizen with EU decision making thus giving them the ability to affect the advancement of their rights. However this contests the authority of member states as modern states because the reshaping of the way citizenship practise determines citizen’s rights has reduced the duties the citizen had to the state and given them to the EU.

Furthermore a change in the constitutive element of citizenship practise in individual member states as citizens begin using EU institutions, in order to effect policies to develop their rights instead of domestic ones has resulted in the challenging of the nations stateness. This has lead to the emergence of a new idea of stateness in which an individual state relies upon the cooperation of other states within a political system in order to maintain its strength in determining citizens duties in order for them to enjoy their rights. In the EU this involves member states sacrificing sovereignty in order to gain the cooperation of other members. Therefore within the EU it can be said that the role of citizenship in state building is that the introduction of the constitutive element of citizenship practise with EU institutions and the sacrifice of sovereignty from member states has consequently given the EU power over the development of the rights and duties of citizens. This has to lead to the building of the EU as a nation state because ‘citizenship, exclusive territoriality and sovereignty define modern states’ (Malvestiti 1959: 58) and the EU now has elements of citizenship as well as some sovereign power. Etienne Davignon refers to the strength of the EUs structure and institutions when she talks about ‘a relatively advanced morphology’ however limits the usefulness of these because of a lack of ‘speech’.

Additionally citizenship changes have changed the stateness of the EU member states because member states scarifies sovereignty to the EU they have weakened as modern nation states, which has lead to the change in constitutive citizenship practise. Therefore EU member states have been built into a new type of state because of the change in sovereignty and citizenship practise. This new type of state uses the institutions of the EU to direct the rights and duties of citizens, and to utilize the ‘pool’ of sovereignty given to it by its member states in order to remain a strong and effective state in its own right. This change in the stateness of member states has supported the idea that the EU demonstrating several characteristics of a nation state nevertheless the voluntary nature of membership leads to the limitation of this theory because member states can withdraw this sovereignty and individual member states are still able to further shape citizens rights and duties without the involvement or approval of the EU therefore member states citizens still maintain the constitutive element of citizenship practise within their own state, this is therefore one strong reason why in my opinion we see that the EU remaining a political organisation despite the fact that it has some characteristics of a state.

The second element of modern citizenship practise is historical, this includes social, political, and civil rights together with belonging (cultural identity and legal identity) (6) this creates unity between individuals and combined with the constitutive element creates the foundations of an effective nation state.

For two reasons related to this second element the EU suffers considerable barriers to the effective fulfilment of its role of supporting its individual member states. Firstly the EU has no ‘common people’ but rather a collection of the member states ‘peoples’, which consequently means that member state citizens cannot directly shape their political, social and civil rights because they can only introduces policies that comply with EU legislation. This will not always be the most desirable outcome, as the EU must choose policies that are in the best political, social and civil interests of all member state citizens and therefore its legislation could prevent an member state from implementing a policy that would be in the interest of their own citizens because of the effect it might have over other member states. Likewise this lack of commonality prevents the EU from conveying a united stance on international topics, a perfect example is the war in Iraq with some member states being very supportive of it while others oppose it. The second reason is that the EU lacks an ethnos, because citizens of different member states have different cultures as a result of historical proceedings. This hinders the effectiveness of the EU because the effect of EU policies on different member states cultures will be different, subsequently making it very hard for the EU to use its ‘pool’ of sovereignty to implement certain policies as citizens will be unwilling to see unwanted changes in their culture introduced consequently member states will use Eu institutions to try and prevent theses policies being legalised, and example of this would be the EU constitution that failed to be ratified because certain member states decided it have to big an impact on their existing culture.

Therefore this overall lack of demos and ethnos is what Etienne Davignon refers to when saying ‘its [The EUs] speech is still a little scanty’ implying that the constitutive element of modern citizenship practise in the EU is ineffective because there is no common relationship between all EU citizens and the political system ie because the internal communication of the EU is fragmented because different member states try to promote different principles. As well as highlighting that the EU struggles with external communication because of its lack a centeral institution can represent the views of all the member states to other states or international organisations.

To evaluate, the quotation; ‘I have at times compared Europe with Tarzan. It has relatively advanced morphology but its speech is still a little scanty’ tells us that even with an advanced structure, like the EU has developed, which allows a political systems institutions to be able to deal with the development of citizen rights, has legal citizenship, and has control over a ‘pool’ of sovereignty, its development into a nation state will always be limited by its ability to create commonality (effective speech). This consequently would lead us to conclude that citizenship is key to building new states because without all aspects of citizenship practise being applicable the emergence of a state will be incomplete as shown in the case of the EU being unable to develop into a nation state because despite displaying many characteristics of a nation state it does not possess all elements of citizenship.

Furthermore Etienne Davignons words can tells us about the role of citizenship in state building in pre-established nation states ie the changes occurring to nation states stateness as a result of membership of the EU. Davignon highlights the view that EU member states have evolved thanks to the effect that EU legislation has on its policymaking and the level sovereign power the nation possess. And that the EU has not replaced individual member states as an overall nation state because of its inability to replace the culture of member states and therefore fails to unify the citizens to create European Union citizenship.

References

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Corbett, Richard and Jacob, Francis, The European parliament, 6th edition Page 196 2005 John Harper publishing
Hix, Simon, The political system of the European Union, 2nd edition, Page 8, Palgrave press 2005
The EU demonstrates all four elements in the definition of a political system as according to the works of Almond (1956) and Easton (1957)
Heywood, Andrew, Politics 2nd edition, Page 415, Palgrave 2002
Wiener, Antje (2003) Citizenship. In Michelle Cini (ed.), European Union Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press

Bibliography.

Cini Michelle, European Union Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press 2003

Corbett, Richard and Jacob, Francis, The European parliament, 6th edition 2005 John Harper publishing

Hix, Simon, The political system of the European Union, 2nd edition, Palgrave press 2005

Marshall, T.H, and Bottommore, Tom, Citizenship and Social class, Pluto press 1992

Mass, Willem, Creating European CitizensRowaman & Littlefeil publishers 2007

Wiener, Antje, The Embedded Acquis Communautaire Transmission Belt And Prism of New Governance, European University Institute, Working Paper RSC No 98/35, 1998